In terms of time spent I believe there's less time needed to get to end game now than what was needed in either vanilla or BC. Personally, I'm fine with leveling as it is. Asking for nerfing of XP for 85-90 right now is too soon. If you don't enjoy leveling, don't make alts. And if GC's musings about professions bears fruit, there may be a lot less need for alts.

I'm assuming that at some point, Blizzard will bow to the lazy and start providing near-end-game toons as a regular thing but I don't think I'll ever take advantage of it.

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if you have BOA gear that pretty much gives you a 45% buff as it is, and it shows. I'm leveling a druid with my cousin who just started playing, i'm all decked out in my gear and i'm at least 3 levels ahead of him since every dungeon we do that has quests i can guarantee at least before 60 will pop at least once if not twice. afterwards past 85-90 it is a good idea to keep that gear, sure it makes you a shit load weaker but the XP boost makes up for it.

And BC content is -still- intolerable to level through.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

- Thucydides

There is a modern myth that people have always tended towards democracy, constitutions, electoral rights; but in truth, love of freedom has never been the predominant note of popular politics. At most times, popular demand has been for a strong government.

Before you can even start playing the game? Blowing it out of porportion aren't you? Just because you are not shot straight to end game does not mean you are not playing the game. I rather enjoy playing low level alts because I get to try out new quest chains, run through classic dungeons with other players and choose new ways to complete old tasks.

The game doesn't start at level 85, it starts at level 1. Any other mindset on the matter is entirely self-imposed.

No, but it does mean you are missing out on the majority of content. It is a fact that the vast majority of the game revolves around max level; which is a problem in design since Blizzard is unwilling to introduce features to make dicking around with lower level content more attractive.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

- Thucydides

There is a modern myth that people have always tended towards democracy, constitutions, electoral rights; but in truth, love of freedom has never been the predominant note of popular politics. At most times, popular demand has been for a strong government.

I think it's too early to nerf the exp for 85-90 but I do wish that MOP had 2 starting areas, ala Wrath and Cata. Sure you can branch out at 86 but it makes it feel repetitive (much like hellfire in BC). That's just my 2 cents though. Wrath and Cata were repetitive too after 8 max level toons but it felt a little more varied.

There is a multiple path you can take in Jade Forest and in order to see it you have to play both factions. There is a horde quest chain and an alliance quest chain that eventually tie together by the end of Jade Forest. So if you want a new path to reduce the redundancy then try a different faction.

What about people without access to heirlooms or RAF? -> Well my daughter used RAF and it was too fast for her to grasp the game, so it was too fast for her. Does boosting a player to 80 really help someone learn how to play? No.

You assume my daughter plays when ever she wants and I don't get involved in wow with her. On the Contrary, when she is playing we play togeather. You can only get the RAF bonus if you are in a certain range of your friend, otherwise its rather wasted. So we only play togeather but we were leveling so fast that I was virtually dragging her faster than her learning speed, not only did we have +300% exp but she had my expertise on how to shoot through the game rather than figuring it out yourself. You learn warcraft better if you trudge through it yourself at your own speed. Even though she went back to level 1 I was there to help her, but we slowed down the learning process by not using the RAF bonus.

So no, I dont suggest new players actually use RAF or Heirlooms.

I made no assumption about how you or your daughter play WOW I simply asked what was the point of levelling from level one when an experienced WOW player would be able teach someone more in an hour than three or four days of levelling ever could. If she enjoys the levelling experience and enjoy teaching her about the game good for both of you but let's not pretend that the levelling process actually teaches much that is relevant to end game play.

I made no mention of new players other than to say that the levelling experience is not very good at teaching them how to play the game. The point of this thread is not about new players experience of levelling but players who have experienced levelling a number of times and are now bored of having to go through it all again.

I recently started leveling a toon of mine through Cataclysm content, for the first time since Mists of Pandaria came out. From what I've experienced so far, they really cut experience requirements. It's taken me significantly less time to go from 84-85, a gap I used to dread.

So, I'd have to disagree. There's been more levels to go through, but the time to get them has been decreased enough each expansion to not make it overwhelming.

One annoyance I'm experiencing, is the return of discovering flight paths. I know that's the way it used to be and having all FPs was a "bug" for awhile, but I notice now it does take up a lot of time during the leveling process.

85-90 can be done in about a week playing for just a couple hours a night. It honestly does not take as long as people think it does. As it was said earlyer, time invested from 1-90 now is a fraction of the time it used to take from 1-60 even 1-70. As they have said in many blue posts, you get out of wow what you put into it, you want to reach the end fast? put in the time and effort to do it. If you cant then dont worry about it, the content will still be there when you reach level cap. However if you complain about it and dwell on how tedious you may think it is, then the game will feel tedious and leveling will seem long.

No, but it does mean you are missing out on the majority of content. It is a fact that the vast majority of the game revolves around max level; which is a problem in design since Blizzard is unwilling to introduce features to make dicking around with lower level content more attractive.

The only content that matters to a player is the content that they are currently involved in. It does not matter how many other people are involved in the end game. Ones enjoyment of the game is not based only on the last level of the game. Your comment would only apply if it was impossible for you to enjoy the 1-89 game because there was no one to dungeon run with and no one wanted crafting goods from that content. If no one doing early content stopped you from getting to end game then this complaint would hold water, believe me I played FFXI where everyone played a main job to end game and all other jobs they leveled only to level 37, which meant that between 37-70 you had a hard as hell time finding a group to level with and you could only level with a group of 5 players in FFXI. If you had a low pop server you were just SOL.

In wow you can always find players to go through previous content with, all you have to do is flip a switch and the game finds you a group. Theres always going to be a demand for early mats so you can make money to get to end game. The majority of players may be active at end game but that doesn't stop you personally from getting to end game.

If there was a hurdle that couldnt get passed in midgame to get to end game then this argument would be viable, but its not. This all boils down to people not wanting to invest any kind of time or effort in anything but the end game, they want a slingshot to throw them to the end so they can get bored quickly and bitch on forums that the xpac sucks because there is nothing for them and their 11 level 90 alts to do.

I don't think cutting exp will solve it. For me, levelling is annoying because it takes too long and for the most part feels meaningless. You breeze through zones really quick and none of it's challenging which makes you feel that you want to just get it done quickly. However, it takes quite a while to do 1-90. I kind of think they should allow all classes to start at a higher level, like a Death Knight does. Obviously, there would have to be certain costs and restrictions to it, but something along those lines.

Yeah. I hated it how XP went so fast that by the time I was near the end of a zone all the mobs were grey. On the other hand, leveling to 90 does take too long.

1-60 is okay really. Those levels fly by. I know OL and NR had their XP requirements cut but I still feel like they take too long.

I think a better option than boosting XP or reducing required XP is if the game gave you semi-frequent level boosts. Ideally it'd be something like, you complete a zone and that gives you a token that boosts you 5 levels or something. That way questing wouldn't be so badly affected and you'd have a motive to actually finish storylines. But at this stage I doubt they'd have much luck implementing something like that.

---------- Post added 2013-03-28 at 05:13 AM ----------

It's more like, you quest but while you do you do some pet battles, gather mats etc and don't have to worry that you're not getting XP while you do those things. They definitely don't want to make pet battles the fastest way to level or everyone would feel compelled to level that way, which would be weird and crap.

The real damned problem with Blizzard is they don't understand how to slightly do anything. They either make something extremely one thing or extremely another. "This can't be too good for leveling" means they'll make it no good at all.

The XP per hour for everything non-questing should be like... 5% worse. Not like.. 500% worse.

They do this in other aspects of the game, too. "While you can do so and so for so and so, doing this so and so will be more effective" (Makes former so and so not effective AT ALL.)

I don't think cutting exp will solve it. For me, levelling is annoying because it takes too long and for the most part feels meaningless. You breeze through zones really quick and none of it's challenging which makes you feel that you want to just get it done quickly. However, it takes quite a while to do 1-90. I kind of think they should allow all classes to start at a higher level, like a Death Knight does. Obviously, there would have to be certain costs and restrictions to it, but something along those lines.

I really like this idea, but what I'd like is like... what's a DK called? A hero class? I'd like "hero" versions of all classes, and doing so will start them all at level 70 or 80, and the requirement will be to have a max level character. You could even do cute things with them, like give them flavorful names, like a certain "type" of Paladin (Same as a normal paladin, just with a flavorful name), or give them flavorful, faction dependent class names.

Leveling does not take longer than it used to, because of succesive experience nerfs.
Heck Vanilla 1-60 leveling was a lot grindier than 1-90 now, if anyone remembers how clunky vanilla quests were. You have idea of it doing TBC areas - kill 30 (!) high HP, slow respawning ogres, reward: 2 gold and 10.000 experience. GG. It was like that in Van, except players did a lot less damage and didn't had 4 digit health until mid 50's at least. 6000 life was absolute god tank in T2.5-3 gear, now characters at level 60 with heirlooms have more health in DPS specs.

I really like this idea, but what I'd like is like... what's a DK called? A hero class? I'd like "hero" versions of all classes, and doing so will start them all at level 70 or 80, and the requirement will be to have a max level character. You could even do cute things with them, like give them flavorful names, like a certain "type" of Paladin (Same as a normal paladin, just with a flavorful name), or give them flavorful, faction dependent class names.

The requirement should be at least five 90s.

I mean seriously, one level 90 character? Even casually leveling as a brand new player that can't possibly be more than two months. Why the hell would people deserve to get a bunch of easy-mode premade characters for playing the game for such a brief period of time?

Honestly, I don't understand how people can complain about leveling being too much these days, you already get nerfed exp amounts for 1-85. And you get bonuses for being a 25 guild, and even more bonuses for BoA armor that makes killing things super easy. Plus the ability to queue for random dungeons and battlegrounds when you get bored of questing. Frankly, asking for easier leveling is a bit whiny.

You tried too hard and now your post is shit. Never try too hard, the gamble isn't worth it. -Boubouille

The real damned problem with Blizzard is they don't understand how to slightly do anything. They either make something extremely one thing or extremely another. "This can't be too good for leveling" means they'll make it no good at all.

The XP per hour for everything non-questing should be like... 5% worse. Not like.. 500% worse.

They do this in other aspects of the game, too. "While you can do so and so for so and so, doing this so and so will be more effective" (Makes former so and so not effective AT ALL.)

I think blizzard always makes things bad. Like example the following.

1) Flying at start ruined CATA, In MoP no flying suck,what they need to do is for flying is what they did in WoTLK
2) Leveling in WoTLK and CATA interms of exp is best because once you get to max level you were able to buy Heirlooms that increase leveling exp, in MoP there is nothing.

What I think they need to do.
1) Make PVP/pet battle/farming/instances as fast as Questing : this way each time you level an alt you can try a different path, instead of just questing.

the speed of levelling would be a non-issue if levelling were challenging or fun. or best of all, both.

levelling in vanilla was done in a world that was dangerous. you always felt threatened. you needed to learn how to use your skills to survive. over the last couple of expansions Blizzard have castrated the outside world, removing any sense of danger and making the whole levelling experience boring. it is no suprise people now want it to be faster and faster.

the fact is, if levelling still contained meaningful gameplay, you would probably get a lot fewer complaints about a lack of end-game content. because people would be happy spending some of their time levelling alts.

Blizzard to need to remember, all the people that were originally sucked in to their game were sucked in by the gameplay that started at level 1. the sense of progression for their character. the sense of danger. the satisfaction of a tough challenge well done. none of this exists any more. is it any wonder they are struggling to bring in new players?

When challenging a Kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.

Over the last 10 years, Blizzard has taken over $10bn from MMO players. Take a look around your game...do you see $10bn worth of content available to you? Do you see even a tiny fraction of that in relevant content? Now ask me again why I dislike what Blizzard has done to the MMO industry.